Notes From an Everyday Composter
Upon moving to Kelowna in 2012, I found it surprising that there was not a city wide compost program. As an introduction to a curbside compost program, I wanted to share my hometown experience with city wide composting programs.
I grew up in Pickering Ontario, a city just East of Toronto, located in the Durham Region, population 88,721. People call Pickering home, and it is very similar to Kelowna in terms of infrastructure and size.
Pickering introduced curbside compost in 2006. This was part of a 1998 initiative to reduce wastes heading into landfill and look towards long-term waste management solutions in the Durham Region. Compost comprises approximately one third of residential waste products in Durham, and 21% of total waste. In 2008 49,660 tonnes of compost were collected and saved from landfill through the green bin program.
How it works:
The program saw every household in the region outfitted with a kitchen food waste container (a small specialized garbage bin for inside the house) and a curbside food bin. Compost was also made available to small businesses. The only expense to residents was the purchase of paper or biodegradable bags with which to line their compost containers.
In order to ensure the success of the program, every effort was made to make composting as simple and easy as possible. When green bins were delivered to residents, instructions on what could and couldn’t be included in compost were provided. The kitchen food waste container (pictured with my lovely parents above) provided a way to keep food waste inside in small amounts to avoid smell and a good lid further addressed this problem. Without having to store compost outside, residents were more likely to participate. Compost was collected every week, along with recycling.
In 2009, due to the success of the composting program, Pickering stopped collecting garbage on a weekly basis. Compost and recycling were collected every week, but residents could produce a maximum of just four bags of garbage every 2 weeks for curbside collection. This created a major shift in the way people handled their waste, as it put more pressure on residents to properly recycle and compost, rather than throwing away items which could be diverted form landfill. Contrast this to Kelowna’s current style of waste management: garbage collection every week, recycling every other week. What if you run out of room in your recycling bin before collection day? It’s a lot easier to place those goods in the trash to avoid a trip to the depot.
Initial concerns with compost were many. Concerns about smell and attracting Pickering’s tenacious racoon population were among the top arguments against the program. Educating residents about what could and couldn’t go into compost required a good deal of advertising. But overall the compost program was met with overwhelming support. Compost smells no more than garbage which contains food waste. Pest- safe green bins keep hungry raccoons from tearing up compost. Finished compost is offered back to Durham Region residents for use on their gardens and lawn at community compost giveaway events. Furthermore, Residents felt good about reducing their environmental impact, and the well thought out composting system made compost no more difficult than throwing out the garbage.
The transition from a traditional collection system to one which included compost was painless and beneficial for all involved. In Kelowna, a similar transition could be just as successful. In a city founded on agriculture and responsible stewardship of the land, is it not time we catch up with regards to waste reduction?
